


Predator

by possumhours



Series: The Fucked Up Nature Documentary of Hueco Mundo [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Animal Instincts, GrimmIchiBing, Loss of Control, M/M, Mild Horror, One Shot, Pining, Pre-Slash, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possumhours/pseuds/possumhours
Summary: Ichigo isn’t a fan of being protected and Grimmjow doesn’t really understand protecting others. However, when a hollow gets Ichigo with a movement-slowing poison in the midst of their spar in Hueco Mundo, they both might have to just deal with it. Or rather, much to Ichigo’s dawning horror, Grimmjow would have to deal with it. It doesn’t help that he seems fixated on showing this hollow ‘who’s top of the food chain’ rather than just taking Ichigo home and calling it a day.Ichigo would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious to see Grimmjow’s hunting skills though.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: The Fucked Up Nature Documentary of Hueco Mundo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136108
Comments: 35
Kudos: 270





	Predator

**Author's Note:**

> I had this lounging in my wips, about half-written. And when I saw that the bing prompt was animal, I sighed dramatically and got out my keyboard.  
> Anyway, I'm going to wander off into the woods to actually work on my bang submission now.
> 
> Also, I managed to reign it in and write a true one-shot for once, a real miracle.

"Oi, Kurosaki," a hand lightly smacked his face, "Wake up." Ichigo felt like his mind was full of slugs as he tried to work out who the owner of the voice was. They sounded familiar and kinda anxious. The palm of their hand was still on his cheek. It felt strangely soft, like the texture of velvet. The nails, no, claws were pricking just behind his ear, minus the one pinprick beneath his eye. "Ichigo!" There was a rumbling, borderline panicked growl to the tone now. Grimmjow? That couldn't be right.

Ichigo's head rolled into the hand, "M' awake."

"Your eyes aren't open," The voice accused. Okay, actually Grimmjow. He'd never heard the arrancar use his first name in a nonmocking delivery before. That was disturbing. World might even be ending.

Ichigo peeled open his eyelids with great effort. They felt as heavy as a sword in his hand. The first thing that registered in his head was the word blue. Grimmjow's glacier blue eyes were three inches away, blown a little wide. The combination of the bone crown of his resurrección and his green estigma made his stare a little more intense than usual. There was a lot of long, blue hair falling over Grimmjow's shoulders onto Ichigo's as he hovered over him. The other forearm was planted in the sand next to Ichigo's ear, effectively caging him in, making Grimmjow his one and only focus. One cat ear twitched as Ichigo's head began to clear enough to form coherent thoughts. The first was remarkably unhelpful because it was somewhere along the lines of ' _wow, I'm very gay_.'

"What happened?" Ichigo managed to slur out instead.

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed to icy slits. His lip curled up in disgust, displaying needle-sharp fangs. "Some shitbag hollow snuck up on our fight and got you with something. Made your movements really fucking slow." Hot breath ghosted over his face as Grimmjow literally hissed, "Got you out of there with a sonido, but I think the sudden force knocked you out. Hopefully. I fucking hate slimy little cowards that use poison." The arrancar ground his teeth loudly, and one of his ears started twitching out an irritated tempo. Ichigo wanted to pet it, but it probably wasn't worth paying the toll of getting bit right now. Not like his limbs would cooperate anyway.

"Poison?"

Grimmjow visibly unclenched his jaw, "Yeah, how ya feeling?"

Ichigo took a second to assess, "Slow. Mind is normal. Chest and back hurt."

"Back is from fuckface supreme," Grimmjow hesitated, "they timed it when I was in the middle of a Desgarrón. I reeled it in when something was off but still got ya pretty good." Grimmjow leaned back to sit on Ichigo's thighs, hard armor ass already beginning to cut off his circulation. He removed his hand from Ichigo's jaw to pick at his chest. Ichigo beat down his sense of disappointment; clearly, there were more vital issues at work. There was the distinctive sensation of cloth clotted with blood being peeled from his skin. The white plate armor on Grimmjow's chest was stained with a lot of red.

"Well, doc, am I gonna live?" Ichigo breathed out around the uncomfortable feeling.

Grimmjow leveled him with an unimpressed stare, "If something this little killed you, I wouldn't even be able to brag about it." He gave Ichigo's wounds a scholarly poke with one claw, "Doesn't look like the poison thinned your blood either, so no danger of bleeding out. Means the hollow that got ya is probably some sort of sick fuck that likes eating intestines from live victims or some shit. So, you're welcome, ya shit excuse for a shinigami with even shittier senses."

Ichigo got defensive, "Hey, I didn't exactly see you catching on until the last second, dickhead."

Grimmjow avoided eye contact, the blue chips of his irises suddenly finding sand fascinating, "got distracted. Piss off." There was an embarrassed stain of pink on his face. Maybe he'd been caught up in their fight already? Ichigo figured it was best for Grimmjow's pride if he didn't push that button right now. Maybe back in the living world just to rile him up.

"Is any of that blood yours?" Ichigo had to ask.

The arrancar put a hand to his blood-smeared chest, "No. We were just getting serious about it. Disappointed?" Grimmjow's face got incredibly smug, points of his cat teeth cheekily peeking out.

He was strongly reminded of the picture of that cat with a knife pointed at it that Karin had shown him. She'd flatly said 'your hollow boyfriend' and then walked away with no further explanation despite Ichigo yelling denials.

"Yes," Ichigo told him dryly. With Grimmjow at least, he'd long gotten over any shame in enjoying a good fight for the sake of it.

"Yeah, me too," Grimmjow sighed out wistfully, tail flicking in annoyance. As if they'd just reunited on the battlefield and hadn't been carving chunks out of each other weekly for years. It was sweet in a weird rival friend with violent tendencies sort of way.

Usually, they had it out in Urahara's training bunker. That put some limit on what techniques they could use without destroying the place, however. So, Hueco Mundo was a fun change of pace. At the very least, there was a chance of a contest at who could make the biggest Gran Ray Cero.

Or, when Grimmjow wasn't in a particular hurry, he'd show Ichigo weird locations in Hueco Mundo. Last time, Grimmjow had shown him the largest cluster of crystallized reishi he'd ever seen and tried to convince him it was haunted. That had been surreal, a hollow of all spiritual beings, positive that something was possessed. This trip might've turned into one of those impromptu tours, given how far they were from their first location.

Ichigo peered around. At first, he deemed they were in a cave until he saw the giant teeth, taller than Grimmjow and twice as wide. There was a mirrored gateway of them lifting up out of the white sands. Moonlight trickled in through the gap. It appeared that they were in the half-buried skull of a giant hollow.

"Where are we?" He breathed out with a touch of awe.

"La Cuna de Huesos," Grimmjow absorbed his blank expression for a second before translating with an eye roll, "The Cradle of Bones. La Cuna is where a menos breaks out of the forest below to evolve into an aduchjas when they form a solid personality. Don't remember why we felt compelled that it _had_ to be this spot in particular, but it did."

"Wait, so, you were born here?"

" _Evolved_ here," he enunciated, "Most surface-dwelling hollows started off here. Weakling adjuchas that go back into the forest too. And, more importantly, most avoid it after." The arrancar threw a furious scowl aimlessly, probably towards where they left their new mutual annoyance.

Ichigo had never heard Grimmjow talk about the particulars involved with his evolution. Or anything hollow related at all, really. Come to think of it, Nel didn't seem keen to talk about details either. It didn't feel like they were secretive about it. More like they were avoiding unpleasant memories. Either way, if Grimmjow was suddenly willing to share, then Ichigo definitely had questions.

"Where'd the big skull come from?"

Grimmjow frowned up at their makeshift ceiling, "Not all evolution is successful. Some collapse midway, and all the souls drop back into the forest and get reabsorbed. The half-evolved skeleton of the almost aduchjas gets left behind for whatever weird-ass reason."

"What was it like?"

"What?"

"Evolving."

Grimmjow's eyebrows descended from behind the bone crown as he glowered. His ears flattened against his head, a nervous tick that Ichigo had only seen a handful of times in this form. But, there was a thoughtful twist to his mouth as he gazed into the middle distance. Finally, he spoke, "Hurt a lot. Got a lot smaller. Then, I was too hungry all the time to think much more about it."

"What did you look like?"

"Take a wild fucking guess."

"Big cat?"

"Maybe human school wasn't wasted on your dumb ass," Grimmjow deadpanned, slapping his palm onto Ichigo's forehead to jangle it about. His eyes suddenly widened as he twisted his head around, "Oh, you have _got_ to be fucking kidding me."

"What?" Ichigo asked a few seconds late. The fact that Grimmjow's clawed hands had toe beans and a plush pad in the middle of his palm was always distracting information on the best of days. It was fatally cute, and Ichigo was expressly forbidden from telling anyone else unless he wanted them dead. Grimmjow also wasn't a hand-holding type, so Ichigo spent an admittedly embarrassing amount of time trying to lure the arrancar into letting him touch the forbidden beans. Not successfully, but he tried.

Grimmjow's fingers tapped down onto his skull, digging the claws in painfully enough to almost draw blood. Ichigo whined out a noise of discomfort, but Grimmjow didn't turn his rigid head or lighten up the pressure. He hadn't seemed to have noticed his own slightly possessive gesture. Ichigo could feel the slight tremor of rage gaining momentum through the contact.

"That fucking prick is following us," Grimmjow breathed out, a cord of disbelief in the undertone, "I'm gonna fucking murder the bastard. I'm gonna string up its intestines on this skull like shitty holiday decorations. I'm gonna eat the marrow of its broken bones and drink blood out of its tiny, insignificant skull."

To say that the order of Grimmjow's words was disturbing was an obvious fact. But, Ichigo had heard threats towards himself from the arrancar twice as gross and way more in detail. It was borderline poetry when Grimmjow had time to get creative. 'What orifice are you gonna jam my toenails in?' had become a bit of an in-joke during fights. His other hobby was telling Ichigo in-depth stories about hunting strong hollows, never sparing the gory particulars, especially what parts of said hollow had been best to eat. Sometimes, it was downright nauseating to hear, much to Grimmjow's glee.

So, why was it that Ichigo felt a sudden surge of jealously?

Ichigo had an ongoing hypothesis. One that he'd thought of, dismissed for a few years, and then dragged back out when he'd accepted no other option. Fighting wars during his formative years may have permanently fucked over his tastes. Romantically. And, probably, embarrassingly enough, sexually. Especially since he'd acknowledged that he'd developed a taste for battle. Ichigo couldn't picture being with someone unless they could enjoy a good brawl or a sword fight. It was something he'd wordlessly kept to himself as his dating prospects continued to be almost nonexistent.

A bit inevitable that his wires got crossed somewhere along the way with his most consistent sparring partner. And the man who'd given him some of the most enjoyable fights of his life. Not that he'd tell Grimmjow that, his ego was a self-sustaining ecosystem as it was.

However, Grimmjow was one of the most straight to the point people he'd ever met in his life. He rarely lied, out of complete disinterest in it rather than inability. So, Ichigo felt like if Grimmjow was interested in him, in a way that didn't involve high stakes, wanton murder on the battlefield, then Ichigo would probably be the first to know, right? Right.

The only thing he knew for sure was that it felt pretty bad to be out of commission while Grimmjow got ready to give someone else a thorough shredding.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Ichigo realized that Grimmjow hadn't been doing his usual threat song and dance for…awhile now? He hadn't noticed because they still engaged in a lot of trash talk. But, he hadn't really heard Grimmjow be actively acerbic towards him outside a spar in some time.

_Oh shit, is he losing interest in fighting me?_

As soon as that thought formed in his brain, Ichigo's stomach dropped into a tight, nauseous feeling. Like his insides were suddenly made of a terrible, acidic sludge burning his rib-cage. Simultaneously, an icy chill of dread raced up his spine, making his shoulder blades itch for action. To _do_ something about this.

He tried for casual, "Maybe we could just go back instead? Don't think a coward that uses poison, as you put it, is really worth your time."

Grimmjow slowly turned back to face him. His eyes caught the moonlight and briefly flashed like two gold coins, catching the light like a real predator's. The expression on his face was far removed from the animal excitement he usually expressed before a fight. If anything, it was as cold as his eye color. Something dark and calculating. Ichigo swallowed nervously.

"And let it know where to open its own garganta?" Grimmjow rumbled out in a low, warning tone, "That thing is a Vasto Lorde and, for some reason, they like you. Might even be an obsessive type." He leaned forward into Ichigo's space again, palm still pressed into his forehead, "I'm not going to fight them. No, for trying to steal my prey, I'm going to _hunt them_." Grimmjow bared his fangs as he spit out that last part, a little close to Ichigo's throat for comfort.

He probably wasn't as bothered as he should be.

Ichigo looked down his nose into Grimmjow's eyes, "Are you mad because you're also a bit of an obsessive type?" Grimmjow's lips closed over his teeth and thinned considerably but didn't deny Ichigo's point. Which instantly made the corners of Ichigo's mouth turn up as his previous apprehensions evaporated.

"Shut the fuck up," Grimmjow griped hotly as soon as his grin appeared. He swung himself off of Ichigo completely, opting to use nearby sand to begin getting blood off his body. Like a chinchilla taking a dust bath.

"Aw, don't leave, it's so cold," Ichigo told his busy back, only half teasing.

Grimmjow didn't respond verbally, but his bone tail slapped the sand in clear, growing irritation. There was a faint scraping sound as he scrubbed the coarse grit all over himself. He threw a middle finger over his shoulder on principle, making Ichigo bark out a laugh in response.

Ichigo, meanwhile, took a moment to force himself to sit up. It felt like lead weights had replaced his bones. He despised the feeling immediately. Looking down, Ichigo was nearly comforted by the sight of his swords still in his hands from their spar. He tried lifting them. Zangetsu's longsword was clearly a no go, but he could almost passingly wield the shortsword.

Grimmjow turned to watch him, brushing the last grains of sand off his chest. The look on his face matched how one might watch a kid at their first self-defense course throw their first punch. Finding it cute but presently not even in the realm of menacing. "Kurosaki, what are you doing?" He asked, sounding almost fond but mostly exasperated.

Ichigo tensed up, feeling a little judged, but not letting it slow him down for longer than a second. "Can't move well, but I could probably fire off a few Getsugatenshous if pushed," he explained to the increasingly unimpressed arrancar.

"This ain't a fight, and you aren't a hunter," Grimmjow worked a shoulder in a slow circle warm-up, "Stay the fuck out of it. This is territorial asshole hollow crap."

"I could be a great hunter!"

"You smell distressed when predators kill prey in nature documentaries," Grimmjow accused with an edge of steel to his voice.

Ichigo was dumbfounded. He'd always made sure to keep his face completely neutral when watching them at Urahara's with Grimmjow after a brutal spar. He hadn't wanted to deal with the teasing about being soft-hearted. Grimmjow's nose was too sharp for his own good. Ichigo might as well chuck his emotional filter in the trash around the arrancar.

Grimmjow claimed something about the documentaries relaxed him. Although, Ichigo didn't particularly have to guess what as he hummed approvingly while jaguars killed crocodiles three times their size.

Grimmjow tilted his head back over his shoulder. There was something unreadable in the fathomless depths of his eyes. "Those things are like watching a tamed version of Hueco Mundo. I like them because I find that funny. In a fucked up sort of way."

There wasn't a hint of a smile on his face when he said it. If there was, Ichigo would've picked up on the unspoken message. _I'm the top predator here in this scary fucking purgatory!_ Something like that. Instead, he looked rather somber. Like someone had brought him some horrible news. Or like he really wished Ichigo was somewhere else.

That was new and bad. Grimmjow spent every second around Ichigo in his space as much as possible. At first, it had been mostly out of intimidation. Still, it had definitely evolved into a quiet preference for sharing space over the years. He'd never said so in words, but Ichigo wasn't blind. Last week, Grimmjow had crawled under the table in Urahara's shop and fallen asleep. At the same time, Ichigo sat there working on a college paper. If he'd happened to notice Ichigo running his hand through his blue hair once in a while, Grimmjow hadn't breathed a word indicating so.

Grimmjow snorted and rolled his eyes, breaking the moment. "Fine, if you want to help so bad, hold this," he said as he bent his elbow into a bomb firing position.

Ichigo made a choking sound, eyes bulging, "What are you doing?"

Instead of blowing Ichigo to bits, Grimmjow merely let a single Garra de la Pantera drop into his other hand. It almost looked like a green crystal, and, more importantly, it did not explode. Grimmjow's mouth curled into a malicious smile, both dimples making an appearance, "What? Did ya think I was gonna blow you up?"

He tossed the rock to Ichigo, who fumbled with it before slapping it between both his palms. Ichigo held it far away from his face, still unsure if it was a live explosive or not. Grimmjow outright snickered at him. "Okay, you _know_ I thought you were, you unpredictable asshole," Ichigo fumed, eyeing the green claw warily, "Why did you give me a bomb?"

"Try to sense my presence."

"What?"

"Just do it, dumbass."

Ichigo was absolute shit at that sort of thing, but Grimmjow was standing _right there_. Even he wasn't that terrible at sensing reiatsu. So, he decided to humor the arrancar and concentrated, stretching his awareness throughout the temporary cave. Grimmjow's head tilted, ear flicking, as though he could sense the effort.

Ichigo held the bomb closer, brow wrinkling with confusion. According to his senses, Grimmjow's presence was _there_ rather than where Grimmjow was _standing_.

Grimmjow's blue eyes were sparkling with coy mischief, "Do you feel it?"

"What the hell?" Ichigo muttered, "Have you always been able to do that?"

The arrancar shrugged noncommittally.

"Why haven't you used it in one of our fights?" Ichigo kept digging.

Grimmjow wrinkled his nose, "Because that'd be a cheap shot and really fucking boring. Not like the Garra do that much to you anyway. I mostly used them like that when there were way too many fuckin' quincies in my desert."

Ichigo could see his creative thought process. Bury a few bombs in the sand, engage the enemy, flash out of sight, move his presence to them, and boom. He hadn't really considered Grimmjow the type to use guerrilla warfare tactics like that. Still, there was something to be said about being grossly outnumbered.

It did make him wonder if Grimmjow had any other tricks hidden up his sleeve.

"Anyway, hold that, bury that, I don't give a shit," Grimmjow headed for the entrance, "Only thing that matters is that thing won't know I'm shredding it until I'm halfway done."

Ichigo quickly occupied himself with burying it. He wouldn't put it past Grimmjow to set the bomb off out of excitement later on. Especially since, as he'd pointed out, they didn't do much damage to Ichigo.

Grimmjow, of course, was gone by the time he turned back. Unfazed, Ichigo worked his heavy limbs to drag through the sand, eventually wiggling his way towards the entrance like a flustered worm. If he was on the sidelines, he might as well settle in to watch this fucked up Hueco Mundo nature documentary.

Ichigo laid flat in the sand, head barely peering around a tooth of the enormous skull. He could feel grit getting into the slash on his chest but couldn't bring himself to care. His attention was fully focused on the moonlight-coated sand dunes in front of him.

They were utterly littered with giant skeletons.

All forms and variety, more animalistic than human-shaped. The most human adjacent one looked more like some form of ape. Its skull adorned a dune in a grotesque, open-mouthed silent scream, one bony arm stretched out in front of it, reaching for something unseen or long gone. Another was so scattered it was hard to tell what its form had been. A marine animal of some sort, maybe? All that remained were giant ribs reaching like disembodied fingers towards the black sky. What appeared to be a crocodile's skull was flipped upright in the sand, lower jaw long disintegrated, sharp conical teeth rising up out of the sand like ivory, over-sized traffic cones. Some leaned precariously to the side, coming loose from their set places in the bone.

Those were just the ones that immediately caught his eye as unique or particularly horrifying. Because for as far as his eyes could see, bleached bones rose out of white sand dunes, only highlighted by the dark shadows thrown off them by the moon. And every black eye socket felt like it was staring directly at him.

It made Ichigo's breath catch in his chest.

Because this was the first sight Grimmjow saw as an intelligent being.

Looking out at every reminder of what Grimmjow could have been, rather than what he'd gone on to become, Ichigo could see why most hollows avoided this place afterward. It left a nasty twisting feeling in his chest. Like one of these skeletons might stand up in a jealous rage to crush Grimmjow, furious at how much he'd gained while it had gotten nothing but a place to rot in the cold sand.

Of course, that didn't happen. It was just Ichigo's brain running wild because the unnatural, dead quiet of the place unsettled him more. If Grimmjow wasn't talking to him, Hueco Mundo was often near silent. But, in this place, for whatever unseen reason, it made Ichigo's hair stand on end.

It was in that dead silence that a lone, black silhouette crested over a sand dune, slowly drifting its way down the steep upheaval. Ichigo's back stiffened as a heavy reiatsu slid across his awareness like thin, oily sewage seeping into a clean sock. His pulse started to pick up speed, thrumming a rapid pattern in his throat.

This thing didn't feel as weak or stupid as Grimmjow thought it was, trying to take on the two of them. It felt like it could go toe to toe with either of them if the other didn't interfere. And it getting Ichigo out of the way straightaway was beginning to be colored in a new, coldly calculated light.

The light was cast just so that even as the thing, the Vasto Lorde, got closer, he couldn't make out much detail. It was human-shaped in the way that a person might be shaped if all their bones were set loosely shaken in the sack of flesh. And then countless spines were added in a fit of acupuncture inspired madness. The eyes were sunken in and gave off a sickly green light. There were teeth, of course, there had to be teeth. But, he could've sworn that they gleamed black and rotten in the one small glimpse the light allowed him.

Why would it need good teeth? After all, Vasto Lorde didn't eat.

Yet, why would one want to kill them if it wasn't capable of feeling hungry?

The thing came to a halt a good twenty feet away, gently swaying to some wind or rhythm that only it could feel or hear. What might have been a tongue swiped over its face as it let out a wet, scratchy noise. A laugh?

"Ssssstupid trick," it hissed out before raising a clawed hand in Ichigo's direction. A cerulean head emerged from behind one of the crocodile teeth, probably thinking the same thought Ichigo was, anticipating the whine of a cero. A move that _would_ make the thing an easy target for Grimmjow for the only three seconds he'd need.

Instead, the Vasto Lorde jerked its hand up.

And Ichigo's body jerked _up_ with it.

Before Ichigo could process, the thing curled its fingers inward, and Ichigo was walking. Towards it. It was as if every heavy muscle had been pulled taut with a wire, twisting and turning the limbs to another will. He couldn't move his jaw, even if he could decide between screaming in fear or anger. The only thing he could move was his eyes.

He was halted a good ten feet away from it. His heart was roaring in his own ears. Ichigo still couldn't see it well beyond that wickedly clawed hand yet raised in the air.

"Now letssss convince the esssspada to join ussss, sssshall we?" It rasped, ostensibly oblivious of Grimmjow flickering into sight behind it, eyes full of cold fury. He slinked up a rib bone with deadly feline silence until he hung directly over his enemy, crouched down in a predator's stance.

Then, the thing wriggled its fingers, again, and Ichigo had put Zangetsu's short blade to his own throat. He could feel his vein pounding against the hard, metal edge. The Vasto Lorde then followed Ichigo's gaze, lifted its head until it made eye contact with Grimmjow, and smiled.

Its teeth were definitely black as pitch. And it turned that grin into an almost featureless void.

Ichigo didn't think it had a nose either.

Grimmjow's claws were burrowing into bone, forming furious cracks as the thing just stood there, looking at the arrancar like he was an entertaining sideshow. His tail lashed, gaze flicking from the Vasto Lorde to the sword at Ichigo's throat.

Oh, Ichigo thought with icy clarity, this thing had been hunting Grimmjow first.

It didn't need to eat. It was hunting for fun.

Ichigo was just the enticing lure.

"Why don't you go ssssstand right behind your friend there, esssspada?" the thing croaked out with guttural, sick glee.

Grimmjow's eyes blazed, every fang on display.

The thing made a scolding sound as if the arrancar was a disobedient child not playing by an unspoken game's correct rules. Ichigo gasped through his nose as a stinging red line opened on his neck, a thin trail of blood racing towards the collar of his shihakusho.

Grimmjow's nostrils flared, head snapping up at the scent of blood. And, not reassuringly, there was a flash of fear. An emotion Ichigo had been dead certain Grimmjow almost incapable of. Ichigo blinked, and Grimmjow was gone.

And even though he couldn't sense him, Ichigo could feel the heat of someone standing directly behind him. A clawed hand spread its fingers in the middle of his back, and the other grabbed his elbow to lock the joint's movement. He could glimpse blue hair out of the corner of his eye as Grimmjow leaned over his shoulder. "Is this _clossse enough for you_?" Grimmjow hissed out mockingly, more panther than human.

Ichigo got the chilling feeling that he'd become a piece in a very deadly game of chess.

The thing's maybe tongue flicked out again, "Ohhhhh yessss, that'll do nicely."

The point of Zangetsu moved to Grimmjow's throat, making the arrancar freeze. The Vasto Lorde twirled its hand in the air, forcing Ichigo's body to turn around. Burning acid swirled in his stomach. He wanted to yell at Grimmjow for being a _fucking moron_. Because if Ichigo had to watch himself _stab_ Grimmjow in the throat, he was…

Grimmjow's face was completely calm. He lifted his arms in the air in surrender, all the while keeping eye contact with Ichigo, as still and clear as a morning pond. And Ichigo was abruptly overflowing with absolute and utter terror.

Ichigo felt his jaw loosen.

The Vasto Lorde rasped out a wet, horrid chuckle, "Well, go on then, I alwayssss like hearing ssssome lassst wordsss."

Ichigo felt panicked. Was now a good time to burst out something about his feelings? Or was that inherently just too cruel because Grimmjow would be pissed he died confused rather than whatever he was doing now? Also, who the _fuck_ wanted to give this other fuckhead the supreme satisfaction of hearing that and giggling to itself about it for the next five centuries?

In the period that Ichigo screamed at himself, Grimmjow instructed in a clipped, solemn way. "As soon as you feel its control drop, sheathe your sword and stand very _, very_ still."

"Wha…?"

Grimmjow flashed a smirk, then cocked his elbow.

The skull they'd been sheltering in exploded in a fit of bone chips, dust, and ear-shattering sound. Ichigo felt the control on his limbs loosen with the thing's surprise, and he yanked back his arms against the power, moving them back only three inches.

But Zangetsu was off Grimmjow's throat.

" _ **Segunda Etapa.**_ "

Ichigo's heart nearly stopped at the phrase before a thick, dark blue reiatsu he'd never felt before pulsed ominously off of Grimmjow. It had the creeping sensation of something stalking through the underbrush, barely brushing the edge of Ichigo's awareness. The energy enveloped the arrancar like a protective layer just as the Vasto Lorde wrested control from Ichigo to shove the point of Zangetsu forward.

It hit nothing.

As the energy dispersed, there was nothing but empty air and a cloud of dust. Grimmjow's presence itself was gone, not relocated, but simply and utterly missing. It was as if he'd blinked out of existence entirely.

The thing behind Ichigo made a nervous, thrilling sound. And maybe it was a side effect of being around Grimmjow for so long, but Ichigo couldn't help the borderline mad grin that split his face. Zangetsu would be proud.

There was the rumbling growl of something; there, off to the right, no, nowhere, everywhere. A flash of shadow on white bone in the corner of his vision. A scrape of sand shifting in the opposite direction. The crack of a bone breaking in the distance.

The Vasto Lorde shrieked.

It was a high noise of pure fear. The cry was met with a discordant, feline roar of rage and victory. Then, there was the sound of _tearing_ , and the fear shriek climbed to a new octave. Something hot and wet hit Ichigo's back in a liquid arc, soaking into his hair and clothes. A thing that might have once been a limb went sailing over a sand dune.

Seeing that appendage disappear and realizing his own limbs were back online, Ichigo remembered Grimmjow's instructions. He sheathed Zangetsu's short sword and stood very, _very_ still.

The shriek cut off with a wet gurgle. Sounds of ripping and tearing continued for another minute, accompanied by the new but familiar noise of bones being cracked. There was the self-satisfied sigh of a predator with its mouth full.

Ichigo didn't need to turn around to know that Grimmjow was devouring it.

Again, he wasn't as bothered as he should've been.

"Grimmjow?"

The sounds stopped.

Hot breath at the back of his neck, huffing sharply. Ichigo didn't move a muscle. A hand curved with sharper, more extended claws than he remembered settled on his shoulder as an angular nose stuck itself into the hair at the nape of his neck. The tip of the nose dragged a trail up to the top of his head, checking for something, maybe.

Then, a rough tongue was assaulting his hair with a bullying level of intensity.

"Hey!"

Another hand grabbed his other shoulder as Ichigo tried to wiggle out of Grimmjow's grip. He was surprisingly gentle considering the talons on the tips of his fingers. But he let loose a furious warning growl that had Ichigo strongly reconsidering movement.

There wasn't much he could do. Ichigo accepted his weird fate in his already weird life of letting Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez clean blood out of his hair with his weird, cat tongue. Just several long minutes of standing in the desert with his arms crossed, staring at a glob of flesh that might've been an organ once. Wondering what Grimmjow _looked_ like right now as the arrancar worked his way up to the crown of his head. Or, as a sandpaper tongue hit his temple, why Grimmjow had never mentioned the fact that he'd figured out how to achieve Segunda Etapa.

Ichigo sure was having a normal one.

Okay, why was Grimmjow now rubbing his whole face over the top of Ichigo's head?

Was he…scent-marking him?

When Ichigo tried to turn around this time, the arrancar let him before dropping his hands back onto his shoulders.

He was tall, as he always was in his release form, towering over Ichigo with several added inches. The white armor was gone entirely, including the defensive bone protrusions on his limbs. From the waist down, it was all inky fur, including a tail that looked incredibly soft. His feet were just as sharply clawed as his hands. The same smooth fur decorated his arms, traveling upwards until it cut off in a line that stopped about mid-bicep, like lethal evening gloves. On the tops of his shoulders and the sides of his waist, Ichigo could see black rosettes marking his skin, seamlessly bleeding in and out amidst the marked differences between animal and human. The dance of the pattern was only halted by his scars, most obviously by the one at his neck's junction. Ichigo would be willing to bet that the markings covered his entire back.

Grimmjow's face was the most interesting, most markedly different, but still familiar. His ears and estigma were now stained just as black as his fur, dotted with added mini rosettes across his cheekbones that made Ichigo think of freckles. Oh god, they were cute, but Ichigo would circle back to that later. His hair was a long, ethereal white and no longer held out of his face by the bone circlet. Instead, the mask fragment had seemingly shifted to four short black horns that emerged from his hairline like a makeshift crown.

His eyes were the most changed, unfamiliar. The iris color was the same as ever, unfairly hypnotizing blue. The sclera had changed to the same teal color as his original estigma. But, it was the change in personality in their depths that had Ichigo pausing more than this slight difference. The pupils were blown wide like an excited cat's, giving Ichigo a pleased, unrestrained expression that didn't entirely feel like Grimmjow.

Even as spattered as the arrancar was with hollow blood, Ichigo didn't find himself particularly afraid of Grimmjow like this.

"Grimmjow?" Ichigo inquired again.

An ear twitched at the name. Grimmjow rumbled out a harsh puff of air against Ichigo's face, repeating the action multiple times. It sounded somewhere between a cough and a whispery bark.

_Chuffing?_

Perhaps, Ichigo had gone to the zoo in the past few years and asked a zookeeper many questions for a full twenty minutes. Mostly about big cats. At least the guy had been enthusiastic enough to not seem too bothered by it. And, now, that knowledge he'd tucked away was finally paying off. He knew that chuffing was a friendly sound and generally signaled good well-being to other big cats.

Grimmjow let out another breathy snort, insistently digging the pads of his fingers into Ichigo's shoulders.

Experimentally, Ichigo did his best to imitate the sound. Grimmjow reacted as if Ichigo had hung stars in the void of Hueco Mundo's sky, letting out a cheerful chirp and rubbing his cheek again on Ichigo's temple. Oddly, he smelled like fresh, rolling mist and green foliage.

Now, Ichigo understood why Grimmjow hadn't said anything, especially with his own experience of completely hollowifying once. This was Grimmjow, but he was all animal instinct, pure hunter and predator. There was a loss of control there that he was sure Grimmjow hated as much as he had. Too unpredictable, even for someone who reveled in the word's very nature. Not yet under the domain of his iron, precise control for reliable use in a fight, not one without high stakes anyway.

Well, at least he seemed to _like_ Ichigo like this rather than wanting to rip his throat out.

Grimmjow was going to be mortified.

That thought had Ichigo smiling a bit as he put his hand to the middle of Grimmjow's chest, right on the scar he'd carved there years ago. The arrancar made a questioning noise as Ichigo gently pushed him back. He leaned back fluidly enough, but Ichigo felt some claws possessively punch through his kosode. Ichigo held his breath, soothingly running a thumb on the warm scar beneath his hand. Because Grimmjow remaining calm was essential. The claws relaxed.

"Grimmjow," he repeated again because there _had_ been a reaction to the name. Ichigo was sure of it.

The other ear twitched.

"Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez." Ichigo slowly enunciated his full name, rolling the syllables of it carefully across his tongue.

Grimmjow slowly tilted his head to one side as if a trickle of thought was traveling from one end of his head to the other on the power of gravity alone. His brow furrowed with intense concentration on an unseen point in the middle distance. Then, he blinked once, twice, three times.

And Ichigo knew the instant he was back.

He stiffened straightaway. Otherworldly, blue eyes darting down and roving over Ichigo, flickering over their surroundings, and looking over his shoulder at the carnage Grimmjow clearly didn't remember causing. Then, they were back on Ichigo, searching his face with an openly lost expression.

Ichigo moved his hand to a forearm, "It's alright, Grimmjow, everything's fine."

"I…" Grimmjow started to say before wrinkling his face into a disgusted expression. He turned his face to the side and spit on the sand in a very unattractive fashion, hacking a bit. With his tongue still stuck out between his cat-like fangs, Grimmjow announced, "That guy's soul tasted like dry shit on wet cement."

Ichigo couldn't stop himself from throwing back his head in a fit of laughter. He just looked so offended by it while decked out wholly in every facet of power that he had. And everything about it was just so significantly, very Grimmjow.

"You're so fuckin' weird," Grimmjow told him earnestly, watching him dissolve to silent giggling. A pot calling the kettle black, in Ichigo's opinion. Watching Ichigo wipe tears out of his eyes, he asked in a smaller voice, "Did I hurt you at all?"

"No," Ichigo said with an easy grin, "Why? Disappointed?"

Grimmjow didn't answer, but his mouth twisted into an amused line, the tension finally melting out of his body. He let out a snort of hilarity before letting his arms drop to his sides.

Ichigo casually stuck a finger through a hole in his kosode. "Although, you did get pretty clingy when I tried to get you to stop rubbing your face all over my head."

Grimmjow gave him a look that said, ' _Haha, very funny._ '

Ichigo wiggled a finger through the hole, making its presence and the truth of his words explicit for the arrancar to see.

He had the singular pleasure of having a front-row seat to a notably embarrassed flush of color spreading across Grimmjow's spotted cheeks. He bared his fangs testily, "I did _not._ "

Ichigo gestured at his head, "Smell for yourself, killer."

For whatever reason, that invitation didn't largely entice Grimmjow back into his space. If anything, it produced the opposite reaction as Grimmjow took a wary step back. One swirl of reiatsu later, he'd reverted two steps down to his humanoid form, gripping the hilt of Pantera with a cautious hand. Grimmjow quickly turned his face, so his mask fragment was facing Ichigo, using it as a shield. But not fast enough that Ichigo hadn't already seen the stain of color still on his cheeks.

"I want to stop tasting trash in my fuckin' mouth," Grimmjow redirected obviously, "Let's go back to the shoten and eat everything in Kisuke's shitty fridge."

"Yeah, sure," Ichigo would let it go. For today.

And he wouldn't mention the curious sniff to his head that Grimmjow _thought_ was stealthy in the void of the worlds between the gates of the garganta. Not today.

He wanted to cradle the spark of hope born in his chest for a bit longer, just for today.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh, I really feel like I’m shaking more and more rust off my writing pen every day. I really enjoyed writing this in particular.
> 
> La Cuna was just born out of me going ‘Ok, that’s it???’ watching Grimmjow casually hop out of the sand as a fully formed adjuchas. Where’s the drama? The pizzazz? The atmosphere? Gotta do it myself, clearly.


End file.
